cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/275145

The speeding motorcycle took the sharp corner so fast in the darkness that both policemen in the pursuing car shouted ‘whoa!’ Sergeant Fisher slammed his large foot on the brake, thinking that the boy who was riding pillion was sure to be flung under his wheels; however, the motorbike made the turn without unseating either of its riders, and with a wink of its red tail light, vanished up the narrow side street.

“We’ve got ’em now!” cried PC Anderson excitedly. “That’s a dead end!”

Leaning hard on the steering wheel and crashing his gears, Fisher scraped half the paint off the flank of the car as he forced it up the alleyway in pursuit.

There in the headlights sat their quarry, stationary at last after a quarter of an hour’s chase. The two riders were trapped between a towering brick wall and the police car, which was now crashing towards them like some growling, luminous-eyed predator.

There was so little space between the car doors and the walls of the alley that Fisher and Anderson had difficulty extricating themselves from the vehicle. It injured their dignity to have to inch, crab-like, towards the miscreants. Fisher dragged his generous belly along the wall, tearing buttons off his shirt as he went, and finally snapping off the wing mirror with his backside.

“Get off the bike!” he bellowed at the smirking youths, who sat basking in the flashing blue light as though enjoying it.

They did as they were told. Finally pulling free from the broken wind mirror, Fisher glared at them. They seemed to be in their late teens. The one who had been driving had long black hair; his insolent good looks reminded Fisher unpleasantly of his daughter’s guitar-playing, layabout boyfriend. The second boy also had black hair, though his was short and stuck up in all directions; he wore glasses and a broad grin. Both were dressed in T-shirts emblazoned with a large golden bird; the emblem, no doubt, of some deafening, tuneless rock band.

“No helmets!” Fisher yelled, pointing from one uncovered head to the other. “Exceeding the speed limit by – by a considerable amount!” (In fact, the speed registered had been greater than Fisher was prepared to accept that any motorcycle could travel.) “Failing to stop for the police!”

“We’d have loved to stop for a chat,” said the boy in glasses, “only we were trying —”

“Don’t get smart – you two are in a heap of trouble!” snarled Anderson. “Names!”

“Names?” repeated the long-haired driver. “Er – well, let’s see. There’s Wilberforce… Bathsheba… Elvendork…”

“And what’s nice about that one is, you can use it for a boy or a girl,” said the boy in glasses.

“Oh, OUR names, did you mean?” asked the first, as Anderson spluttered with rage. “You should’ve said! This here is James Potter, and I’m Sirius Black!”

“Things’ll be seriously black for you in a minute, you cheeky little —”

But neither James nor Sirius was paying attention. They were suddenly as alert as gundogs, staring past Fisher and Anderson, over the roof of the police car, at the dark mouth of the alley. Then, with identical fluid movements, they reached into their back pockets.

For the space of a heartbeat both policemen imagined guns gleaming at them, but a second later they saw that the motorcyclists had drawn nothing more than —

“Drumsticks?” jeered Anderson. “Right pair of jokers, aren’t you? Right, we’re arresting you on a charge of —”

But Anderson never got to name the charge. James and Sirius had shouted something incomprehensible, and the beams from the headlights had moved.

The policemen wheeled around, then staggered backwards. Three men were flying – actually FLYING – up the alley on broomsticks – and at the same moment, the police car was rearing up on its back wheels.

Fisher’s knees bucked; he sat down hard; Anderson tripped over Fisher’s legs and fell on top of him, as FLUMP – BANG – CRUNCH – they heard the men on brooms slam into the upended car and fall, apparently insensible, to the ground, while broken bits of broomstick clattered down around them.

The motorbike had roared into life again. His mouth hanging open, Fisher mustered the strength to look back at the two teenagers.

“Thanks very much!” called Sirius over the throb of the engine. “We owe you one!”

“Yeah, nice meeting you!” said James. “And don’t forget: Elvendork! It’s unisex!”

There was an earth-shattering crash, and Fisher and Anderson threw their arms around each other in fright; their car had just fallen back to the ground. Now it was the motorcycle’s turn to rear. Before the policemen’s disbelieving eyes, it took off into the air: James and Sirius zoomed away into the night sky, their tail light twinkling behind them like a vanishing ruby.

Harry Potter’s Invisibility Cloak comes in several different formats to help create its movie magic (Picture: Tori Brazier)

Hermione’s Time-Turner could have allowed us even longer in the archive… (Picture: Tori Brazier)

Some pieces need boxed storage and others don’t (Picture: Tori Brazier)

The archive’s location is kept tightly under wraps due to the interest and value of what it holds. However, the staff regularly ship items across the globe and have specific ways of doing so safely.

Radcliffe’s costumes take over almost an entire bottom rail of one of the archive’s full rows, and 22 bays in full. There’s everything from the (tiny!) red jumper he wore in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone when gazing into the Mirror or Erised, to his different Triwizard Tournament uniforms from the three tasks in Goblet of Fire, and the disguise he wears to break into the Ministry of Magic alongside Ron and Hermione in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 1.

‘A lot of the costumes would have been sourced from just high street stores like Uniqlo and Gap, things that don’t look super stylish or expensive. They’re quite generic so you can’t pin them to a specific time period, which makes the films feel quite timeless,’ Crane explains.

There are plenty of what appear, at first, to be rather dirty costumes in bad condition too, reflecting the adventurous nature of Harry’s escapades – but this is all movie magic and ‘stage dirt’.

‘We have them treated to make sure the costumes are clean, but they are supposed to look like they’ve fallen down a bathroom sewer, so they’re meant to be all dirty and torn!’ Crane says as she shows us Harry’s costume from the Chamber of Secrets scene.

The senior coordinator – who herself appeared as a Ravenclaw extra in the final few Potter films and serendipitously came across her original costume when sorting through items for the archive – also tells us about the multiples some costumes must be produced in, to accurately depict various stages of breakdown.

There’s almost a full bay dedicated to Harry’s beige cord jacket and outfit he wears for the majority of the Deathly Hallows – Part 2.

‘This is quite an iconic costume, you’ll see it on all the posters for the last Harry Potter film, he’s wearing it for a fair chunk of it, and what I like about this costume is that we have different stages of breakdown for it, so it’s the same costume but we’ll have multiple versions and some will be a little holey and some will be very damaged,’ Crane shares.

LINK

With the archive initially founded as a place to house the wealth of material from the Harry Potter films as shooting wrapped, the UK has continued to be a preferred destination for Warner Bros to film some of its biggest tentpole productions.

Need a broomstick? There are Firebolts, Nimbuses and Nimbus 2001s galore, as well as various characters’ brooms, such as Mad-Eye Moody’s (Picture: Tori Brazier)

The archive itself is split into three major areas... that houses mostly flatpack set pieces for ongoing shows or oversize props, like dragon backs or chess pieces from Harry Potter – things that would require a forklift truck to get to or move, as Steven Fouché, director of the WBD Archive, puts it.

That’s why you can find everything here from Mr Weasley’s blue Ford Anglia and Harry’s invisibility cloak to Godric Gryffindor’s sword, a Horcrux or two and dozens and dozens of wands, trunks, brooms and costumes.

Potter items even include miscellaneous trophies from a Room of Requirement scene, stacks of Daily Prophets and various written material, as well as fake food like mounds of chocolate dessert for the feasts and balls held at Hogwarts, after production moved away from using real food.

A framed timetable for the Hogwarts Express is also peeking out nearby, fully complete, despite the fact it won’t have been seen as anything other than a glimpse in the background of a scene (the train runs through stations including Uxbridge, if you’d like to know).

‘The detail in Harry Potter is astonishing. There are pamphlets for the Quidditch world cup that were never seen on screen, but you can actually turn through them and they’ve got player profiles,’ says Fouché.

In among the archive’s impressive collection of broomsticks (the Nimbus, Nimbus 2001 and Firebolt are all present and correct), we learn the distinction between things like generic student and stunt brooms, as well as the ‘hero’ or ‘beauty’ broom.

‘Quite often, especially with weapons, you’ll have the main hero or beauty one that you’ll do close-ups with, but then if that’s being used in a stunt or in any form of action, then they’ll make rubber or soft ones so that if an accident does happen you don’t have people injuring themselves,’ Fouché explains.

Most of the beauty broomsticks from Harry Potter are out on display at either the Leavesden or Tokyo studio tours, or one of the two travelling exhibits, with another two planned to start later this year.

cross-posted from: https://yiffit.net/post/958540

Archived version: https://archive.ph/HSmIX

‘I wanted to be No 1. But a certain JK Rowling came along’: Jacqueline Wilson on rivalry, censorship – and love

Interview by Simon Hattenstone

Raised by a ‘scary’ father and a ‘terrible snob’ of a mother, the Tracy Beaker author has always understood the loneliness that marks so many young lives. But at 77, she’s never been happier.

https://www.artstation.com/artwork/W6yJv

It’s been 26 years since a little novel called ‘Harry Potter & The Philosopher’s Stone’ hit bookshelves in Britain that would transform children’s literature forever.

Back in the day, the release of one of the seven books in the spellbinding series was a cultural event, spawning midnight releases and frantic scrambles by fans to be the first to know about The Boy Wizard’s yearly adventures at Hogwarts.

1. Sleepover at Woodseats Library Harry Potter fans Holly White, Harriet McAra and Abigail Ives-Owen get in a little light reading before their sleep over at Woodseats library ready to read The Half-Blood Prince when it released at midnight. Dated July 16, 2005.

more linked.

The Harry Potter books are to be made into a new TV series with a brand new cast. Author J K Rowling and her agent Neil Blair are both executive producers.

The series will be produced over the course of a decade, with each season based on one of the seven books. It will be streamed on Max, formerly known as HBO max.

Warner Bros Discovery said in a press release: "The series will feature a new cast to lead a new generation of fandom, full of the fantastic detail, much loved characters and dramatic locations that Harry Potter fans have loved for over 25 years. Each season will be authentic to the original books and bring Harry Potter and these incredible adventures to new audiences around the world, while the original, classic and beloved films will remain at the core of the franchise and available to watch globally.”

Rowling said: "Max’s commitment to preserving the integrity of my books is important to me, and I’m looking forward to being part of this new adaptation which will allow for a degree of depth and detail only afforded by a long-form television series."

Rowling and Blair will executive produce alongside Ruth Kenley-Letts. David Heyman, who executive-produced all eight of the Harry Potter feature films is also in talks to executive-produce.

The eight Harry Potter films were fantastic adaptations of the beloved books. However, there were still many plot points that had to be excluded for time. The upcoming Harry Potter TV show will have a longer time to include more details from the books, and we’re hoping that means they’ll include these ten things we didn’t get to see fleshed out in the films.

Ron’s Personality

Ron’s character in the films often gets relegated to the comic sidekick instead of the brave, valued, and caring friend he is in the books. Plenty of his lines are often given to Hermione instead, which takes away from Ron’s growth and character development and keeps him in the role of the sidekick. The reboot show is the perfect chance to give Ron the deeper characterization he deserves.

Cleaning 12 Grimmauld Place

Cleaning the Order’s headquarters did take a good chunk of the massive Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, so it’s understandable why the filmmakers cut this scene. But this sequence would have also revealed that the trio had discovered Slytherin’s locket before they knew its significance. It’d be nice to see this on screen, along with the interesting hazards presented by magical cleaning (Doxies, anyone?).

and Dumbledore’s Prophecy Explanation, Ginny’s Characterization, Voldemort’s History, Dumbledore’s Funeral, Fred’s Death, Ron and Hermione’s First Kiss, Dumbledore’s Background.

@sunaurus@lemm.ee